Proof Argument

Have you ever written a proof argument for your genealogical research?

I know the Genealogical Proof Standard incorporates writing a proof argument – a soundly based conclusion that others can follow.

I try to do exhaustive research, citing the sources behind the facts attached to individuals in my tree. However, I’ve never written a detailed proof argument.

I’m in the middle of a lot of ‘same name’ research in Kentucky around 1800. To help me think through the evaluation of the records, I’ve been writing blog posts about this research.

One of the goals of this research is to identify parents or siblings of my ancestor, James Crawford (1772-1854) who married Sally Duggins in Garrard County, Kentucky in 1799.

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Unfortunately, there is another James Crawford (1770-1833) who lived next to my ancestor in Preble County, Ohio. This James Crawford married Martha Knight in Lincoln County, Kentucky in 1793.

Living in the area at the time were several candidates for the parents of these two men.

• James Crawford (1758-1836) and his wife Rebecca Anderson lived in Garrard County, KY along the Paint Lick Creek before moving to Indiana.
• William Crawford (1748-1809) also lived along Paint Lick Creek before moving to Ste. Genevieve, Louisiana Territory.
• Mary Crawford (abt 1755 – ?) was listed as a widow on the Madison County, Kentucky tax list in 1792. She married Alexander Moore in 1793.
• Rebekah Crawford (1750- ?) was listed as a widow on the Lincoln County, Kentucky tax list in 1787.
• John Crawford (?-?) was listed in Lincoln County on the 1787 tax list for Lincoln County, Kentucky.

Other researchers have identified the children of James and William. Both families include a son named James. Both of these James Crawfords were too young to be either of the James Crawfords of Preble County. None of the records for these sons place them in the area of Preble County, Ohio. Thus, I have eliminated James and William as potential fathers.

When I started tracing records for John Crawford, I thought he might be a potential parent. However, I’ve uncovered several power of attorney deeds that suggest that John Crawford’s land passed to heirs other than children. I need to do more research on these other families, but I don’t believe John Crawford is a father to either of the James Crawfords of Preble County.

Assuming a parent was in the Lincoln, Garrard, Madison counties area at the time of their marriage, that leaves Rebekah and Mary Crawford as potential mothers.

For some time, the theory has been that Rebekah is the mother of the James Crawford who married Martha Knight. The evidence to support this theory revolves around marriage bonds.

• a Rebekah Crawford gives permission for Mary and Sarah Crawford to be married in Lincoln County, Kentucky
• Rebekah Crawford purchased land from George Douglas 
• James Crawford and Martha Knight were married in Lincoln County, Kentucky
• A Nathan Douglass signed the bond for the marriage of James Crawford and Martha Knight

After reviewing some land records for Rebekah Crawford, I believe she sold her land to James Aldridge. Also listed on the deed as a grantor was James Crawford. I believe this deed supports the theory that Rebekah Crawford is the mother of a James Crawford. This deed indicates that Rebecca Crawford and James Crawford are of Barren County, Kentucky. In 1821, James and Martha Crawford of Preble County, Ohio sold land lying in Barren County, Kentucky.

Thus, I believe the James Crawford who married Martha Knight is the son of the widow Rebecca Crawford. I will continue looking for records to support OR disprove this theory.

Marriage Bond Mystery

Do you have documents in your genealogy files with incomplete citations. Congratulations if your answer was no!

Unfortunately, I have documents with partial citations. One set of those documents is four marriage bonds involving Crawford family members from Kentucky in the 1790s.

• Mary Crawford consent to marry James Sellers given by Rebekah Crawford on 19 Dec 1791 in Lincoln County, Kentucky witnessed by James Crawford and Wm Sellers
• Bond of James Crawford and Nathan Douglas for the marriage of James Crawford to Martha Night on 12 Mar 1793 in Lincoln County, Kentucky. Consent for the marriage was given by John Goodpastor and witnessed by James Sellers and Samuel Sellers
• Consent of Rebekah Crawford for Sarah Crawford to marry William Sellers on 2 Feb 1796 in Lincoln County, KY witnessed by James Crawford and James Sellers
• Bond by James Crawford and James Sellers for the marriage of James Crawford and Sally Duggins on 12 Sept 1799 in Garrard County, Kentucky

I was able to locate the two Crawford-Sellers bonds thru Family Search. They are found in the Loose papers, files 1-6 1781-1809 (film #102262) in the Marriage Records, 1781-1961 collection for Lincoln County, Kentucky on Family Search thru a search of the index for Crawford.

On the off chance that the bond for James and Martha was missed, I scanned thru the entire roll of loose papers — and still didn’t find it. I was able to find verification that the record existed at one time in the set of records titled, “Extract” in the Marriage Records, 1781-1961 collection for Lincoln County, Kentucky.

I had a similar experience trying to locate the bond for James Crawford and Sally Duggins. I located the following in the Index 1797-1853 (DGS 004260348) set of records in the Marriages, 1797-1954 collection for Garrard County, KY.

Thus, I have two marriage bonds and little evidence of where they came from.

Bond for James Crawford and Martha Night

Bond for James Crawford and Sally Duggins

 

So, the question of the day: Where did I get copies of these two marriage bonds?

Lesson of the day: Create a solid citation for each and every source!

 

 

 

 

Research Logs

Do you have one task that ‘genealogy experts’ recommend that you just don’t seem to be able to tackle? For me, that tends to be a research log.

Even though I have a ‘research log’ from my early days of research, I haven’t been consistent with keeping that log — especially with Internet searching. And, I really could use a comprehensive research log now!

I have the opportunity to apply for a ‘brick wall’ consultation at the upcoming Topeka Genealogical Society conference in April. As part of that application, I need to submit a list of sources already checked. With forty years of research and a lot of same name issues, I could really use a complete research log!

For this application, I am going to submit James Crawford (1772-1854) of Preble County, Ohio as my brick wall ancestor. James married Sally Duggins in 1799 in Garrard County, Kentucky before migrating to Ohio by the early 1800s. The research question I would like assistance with is “Who is James Crawford’s father?”

Seems simple enough, right. Unfortunately, there are a lot of same name issues with researching this ancestor.

1. Next door neighbor in Preble County, Ohio was James Crawford (1770-1833) who married Martha Knight in 1793 in Lincoln County, KY. This James Crawford migrated from Preble County, OH to Warren County, IN where he died. Also migrating to Warren County, IN from Preble County, OH at about the same time was Nelson G. Crawford, the son of James and Sally (Smith Duggins) Crawford.
2. There is a third James Crawford (1758-1836) living in Madison and Garrard counties in Kentucky prior to 1800. This James Crawford was married to Rebecca Anderson and migrated to Jennings County, IN and then to Jefferson County, IN.
3. Garrard County KY histories refer to a Rev. James Crawford. There was a Rev. James Crawford (1752/3 – 1803) at Walnut Hill Presbyterian Church in Fayette County, KY. Rev. James Crawford was married to Rebecca McPheeters.
4. DAR applications by descendants of James Crawford and Rebecca Anderson appear to have records mixed up with a James Crawford (1757-1836) who resided in Fleming County, KY. This James Crawford was married to Sarah Vansant.

So, I not only need to identify sources I’ve checked for James and Sally (Duggins) Crawford, but also sources I’ve checked for all of these other James Crawfords.

To start re-creating such a research log, I used RootsMagic to print an individual summary report, complete with bibliography for each of these James Crawfords. I then copied the bibliography entries into Notepad where I could remove the leading punctuation and clean up any other errors.

From Notepad, I copied the entries into Excel. Since there were blank lines between each bibliography entry, those blank lines copied over to Excel. To eliminate the blank lines, I sorted by the bibliography column. This pushed all of the blank lines to the bottom of the list.

Unfortunately, that only gets sources that I’ve cited in RootsMagic. I had drawers full of research that would need to be added to this list of sources used. Fortunately, I have scanned most of that research. Unfortunately, I named the scanned files with the Dollarhide code I used to file the paperwork.

Since the code was part of my citations in Master Genealogist, I can find the paperwork when working from a source in my program. However, these file names don’t tell me where I got the information in each of those files. When I open the file, it is usually a handwritten document (remember my research is up to 40 years old).

Unfortunately, I don’t have a full citation on these old notes. However, I usually have a fairly accurate title. When I started working my way thru my Ohio notes, I was just Googling the title. Part way thru, I realized that I could probably find the information faster using WorldCat.

In some cases, I didn’t have enough of the title to find it via WorldCat. In those situations, I used the FamilySearch catalog and searched for the place associated with the resource. Then I drilled down to the type of information (history, tax, deeds, probate, etc.).

So far, I’ve been able to find the bibliographic information thru either WorldCat or FamilySearch. This bibliography information was added to my Excel spreadsheet along with the filing code.

In the process, I also took the opportunity to change the file name so that it included an abbreviated version of the title of the resource.

In some cases, these files were actual copies of records. In those cases, I changed the file name to indicate the type and source of the record.

Yesterday, I managed to make it thru the process of identifying and renaming my Ohio files for Crawford. However, I still need to do my Kentucky files and my Virginia files. Since I have done some FAN club research, I should also add the files for Duggins and Sellers along with the bibliographies for the females appearing on the early Kentucky tax lists: Rebecca Crawford and Mary Crawford.

Lesson learned:

Use better file names

Keep a research log!

 

 

 

Identifying Parents

Have you had a set of parents for an ancestor in your tree for years when you discover another researcher has a different set of parents? I recently made that discovery for my ancestor Sarah Rush Briles (KP93-T9C) on Family Search.

Seeing this other set of parents made me question whether I had made a mistake. I knew that my old research included a transcription  of a petition for dower that was printed in The Genealogical Journal of Randolph County, NC (Vol 3, #4, pages 5-6)

This transcript shows Sallie Rush as the plaintiff. Listed among the defendants is Alexander Briles and wife Sallie. The body of the petition identifies Sally Rush as the widow of Noah Rush deceased.

With the parentage of Sarah Rush Briles now in question and my documentation based on a transcript, I knew I had to either find the actual petition for dower or some other document to support my case. By searching Ancestry, I was able to locate the probate papers for Noah Rush in North Carolina, Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998.

Towards the first of the packet is a petition to sell land. This petition names Alexander Briles and Sallie Briles his wife as one of the defendants. Later in the petition, it indicates that Alexander Briles and Sallie live in Kansas.

Rush, Noah Probate Papers
from North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998
available on Ancestry at
https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/9061/007384178_01104/1275983#?imageId=007384178_01105
Image 60901
——————————————————————————————————————

 

Superior Court ____ Randolph County
Ransom W Harris as
Admin of Noah Rush Pltff

Petition to Sell Lands to pay debts

against
Rev. Zebadee Rush
Milton Blair and wife Mary Blair
Franklin Johnson and wife Martha Johnson
Alexander Briles and wife Sally Briles
Branson Briles and wife Dorcus Briles
George G Rush, John C Rush
Noah Rush, Nancy Wade
Sallie Hatfield, Zebadee Rush Junr
George Gastinow and wife Mary
Martha Rush, Nancy Rush
Louix Rush and Laura Rush
The last three by their guardian Louis Rush
Defendants
To the honrable A. W. Lougee Judge of Said Court

The petition of R. W. Harris as Administrator
of Noah Rush deceased, respectfully showeth unto
your honor
I
That he qualified as administrator on the estate of the
said Noah Rush before B Bu Bulla Probate Judge of
said county during the year 1870
II
That the amount of the debts outstanding against the

Rush, Noah Probate Papers
from North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998
available on Ancestry at
https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/9061/007384178_01104/1275983#?imageId=007384178_01106
Image 60902
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————

estate from the best information and knowledge which
he has been enabled to obtain is about three hundred
and fifty dollars, that the charges of administration will in
his opinion amount to about two hundred and fifty dollars
and there was [apeped] to be paid to the
widow in cash towards her years support two hundred
and fifty eight 30/100 dollars, making the entire
liabilities of the estate from the foregoing sources about
eight hundred and forthy eight 30/100 dollars
III
That the value of the personal estate of his intestate is
about three hundred and eighty five dollars. that of
this form of three hundred and eighty five dollars, a
portion is outstanding as yet, uncollected; which wo
much thereof as your Petitioner has been enabled to
collect has been nearly all paid out on the costs and
charges of the administration and on the afforesaid
allowance to the widow.
IV
That the intestate at the time of his death was seized
and possessed in fee simple of the following tracts of lands
situate in said county
1 The Powel tract adjoining the lands of John Wilborn
and others lands of the deceased containing about one
hundred acres more or less and estimated to be worth
about one hundred dollars
2. A tract adjoining Benj. Rush and others containing fifty acres more or less valued at about fifty dollars
3. A tract adjoining P. Copple and others containing twenty four
acres more or less and worth about twenty four dollars.

Rush, Noah Probate Papers
from North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998
available on Ancestry at
https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/9061/007384178_01104/1275983#?imageId=007384178_01107
Image 60903
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————

4 A tract adjoining the lands of Robert Loftlin
and others containing fifteen acres more or less worth
about fifteen dollars
5 The home tract adjoining R W Harris and Lewis Johnson and others containing by estimation three hundred acres.

V
That the sale of all the above named tracts of land
except the one last mentioned, and also the sale of such
part of said last mentioned tract given or sold by the intestate
to George Rush and Reconveyed by said Rush to the
intestate and not covered by the dower. containing about
one hundred and fifty acres, and value at about three
hundred dollars, he believing to be necessary to enable
him to pay the debts and charges of Administration of
his intestate

VI
That the intestate in addition to the foregoing land, died
also seized and possessed in fee simple of one half interest
in a copper mine tract of one hundred acres more or
less adjoining N Spencer and others and no others.

VII
That upon the death of said intestate the said lands
descended to his children and grandchildren as follows the
defendant Sally Briles wife of Alexander Briles Post office
Leroy, Kansas, Darcas Briles wife of Branson Briles Post
Office Virdis Kansas George G Rush Post Office McCarion
Indiana, John C Rush, Noah Rush and Nancy Waid
post office of the last three Springville Indiana Mary
Blair wife of Milton Blair, Martha Johnson, wife of
Franklin Johnson, the last two of Randolph County

Rush, Noah Probate Papers
from North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998
available on Ancestry at
https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/9061/007384178_01104/1275983#?imageId=007384178_01108
Image 60904
————————————————————————————————————————————————————

North Carolina Rev. Zebadee Rush Post Office Nashville
Nash County North Carolina. Sallie Hatfield, Zebadee
Rush Junr Mary Gastinow wife of George Gastinow and
Caroline Rush, the last four of Springville Indiana
and the following minors to wit: Martha Rush aged
20 years, Nancy Rush aged 18 years, Louis Rush aged
12 years and Laura Rush aged 9 years [I] and said
minors have for their guardian Louis Rush Post
Office Springville Indiana
To the ones therefore that the said tract of lands with the
exception herein before mentioned may be sold by your
petitioner upon such terms as your honor
may direct and that the process of sale may be
considered assets in his hands for the payment of debts
and charges of administration
Your petitioner brings
1st For and order for the sale of said lands for the purpose
aforesaid
2nd That the defendants may be duly notified according to
law to appear and show cause if any they can why the
prayer of your petition should not be granted
Jackson & Robins
Attorneys for Petitioner
R w Harris being duly sworn says I have herewit [?] the
foregoing petition,and know the contents thereof, the same is
true of my own knowledge, except as to matters state on
information and or to their, I believe it is to be true
R W Harris
Sworn to and subscribed
before me the 18th day
of July 1871
B B Bulla CSC

I will continue to search for documentation tying Sarah Briles of Coffey County, Kansas to Sallie Rush of Randolph County, NC. However, at this time, I believe that Noah Rush of Randolph County, NC is the father of Sarah (Sallie) Rush Briles.

I would love to hear from you about my Rush/Briles research in Randolph County, North Carolina. I can be contacted at mcphilbrick at gmail.com.

Is It Fake News?

Have you ever heard anything that sounded too good to be true? Have you ever believed something to only find out that Snopes.com says it is false? I know I have — both in my Facebook timeline and in my genealogy.

Thus, when I saw that there were parents for my ancestor, James Crawford on Family Search, I so wanted to jump up and down with joy. Not only are the parents identified, but so are the siblings.

This is fantastic news! However, the skeptic in me asked, “Is this really true or is it just ‘Fake News’?” 

Thus, I started looking for the sources behind the relationship. The only source attached that supported the parent-child relationship was a christening record for James Crawford found in Scotland, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950.

Scotland Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950 was used as the source for each of the children of Hew and Isobell (Muir) Crawford. I don’t doubt that Hugh and Isobell had a son named James Crawford who was christened in 1768. But is the James Crawford in this source, my James Crawford.

When seeing this source, my first thought was that I have no evidence that my James Crawford was born in Scotland. Unfortunately, I don’t have direct evidence saying he wasn’t born in Scotland.

According to the 1850 census, my ancestor was 78 years old and born in Virginia. My ancestor, James Crawford, married Sally Duggins in 1799 in Garrard County, Kentucky. These two sources along with the history of other Crawford families in Lincoln, Madison and Garrard counties Kentucky prior to 1800 are the basis of my theory that my ancestor was born in Virginia and not in Scotland.

I also wondered whether there was DNA evidence to support Hugh Crawford as the father of James Crawford. Fortunately, I am managing some yDNA in the Crawford Family DNA Project. I didn’t remember any close matches who had a Hugh Crawford line. When I checked our ‘group’, I didn’t find any Hugh Crawfords in the group.

My Crawford line has been placed in the R1b-01B Ardmillan group. Most of the Hugh Crawford lines are in the R1b-13a Dal Riata group. Thus, the Crawford ‘experts’ don’t believe my line is closely related to a Hugh Crawford line.

My list of yDNA matches does include someone whose line goes back to a Hugh Crawford. However, our genetic distance is EIGHT at 111 markers.

At this point, I don’t believe the DNA evidence supports Hugh Crawford as the father of James Crawford.

Since Family Search contains a revision history, I followed the revisions and identified two researchers who seem to support Hugh Crawford as the father of James Crawford. I messaged each of them to see if they could shed further light on the family. I also messaged two descendants of James Crawford that have been researching the family longer than I have. I received a response from one of the ‘Hugh Crawford’ camp stating that the attached sources (i.e. the Christening record) were the support for Hugh Crawford being the father of James Crawford.

With the Christening record being the only support, I decided to evaluate that information against what I already knew about James Crawford (see James Crawford in my Ancestry tree for details). I have 1772 as the birth year for James Crawford. My source for that information is his tombstone found in the Eaton cemetery, Preble County, Ohio. Since the 1850 census indicates that James Crawford was 78 years old, this census record supports a birth year of 1772.

At this time, my conclusion is that James Crawford was born in 1772. Thus, he could not have been christened in 1768 in Scotland. Based on my conclusion, I changed his birthdate back to the 1772 date and removed the Scotland Baptism record from his list of sources.

Without the Scottish baptism record, there isn’t any evidence that Hugh (or Hew) Crawford is the father of James Crawford of Preble County, Ohio. Since one of the other descendants is more knowledgeable of how to edit relationships on Family Search, I’m going to let her attack the parentage issue.

Thus, I am considering the news that Hugh Crawford is the father of James Crawford of Preble County, Ohio to be Fake News. Unfortunately, that means I am still looking for the parents of James Crawford.

 

Analyzing Sources

I recently have been working on a ‘go over’ for my 2nd great grandfather, George Mentzer. In the process, I utilized Scrivener. I had probably heard about Scrivener, but when I saw it mentioned in the recent Twitter #genchat, I decided to try it. In the process of learning more about Scrivener and genealogy, I discovered Lisa Alzo’s Ancestor Profile Template along with her 25 Genealogist Hacks Every Genealogist Should Know.

I haven’t used my George Mentzer Scrivener project to write his biography (yet). However, I have used it to transcribe the various documents I’ve collected over the years.  My research folder contains the actual document files.

I then used the dual screen option to transcribe the documents. I placed the transcriptions in my ‘draft’ folder.

I discovered that I could copy/paste the footnote for the document from RootsMagic into the +fn box on Scrivener.

As I proceeded thru transcribing various records, I also worked on the corresponding events in RM. I copied/pasted the transcription from my Scrivener project into the details. In the process, I also verified other details for the event such as the date.

Now, I have the various events in RM with the corresponding documentation. Since various documents cited differing dates for an event, I unfortunately have multiple dates for the same event.

Since this makes for a very messy report, I turned to the RootsMagic Facebook group to see how others handled this issue. One proposed solution involved selecting one date as the ‘official’ date and marking that ‘primary’ while marking the other dates ‘private’. This solution will ‘clean up’ a narrative report if hidden facts are not included. However, said report would not include the sources for those hidden facts. Thus, others would not be aware of the conflicting data.

Another solution was in a post by Dan Mohn where he discussed his solution for dealing with multiple birth dates. In his blog post, “Grandpa Joe Smith Was Born on __.” Are You Sure?, he discusses the issue and the ‘solution’ he is adopting. Dan is using the Note field for the event to discuss the discrepancy between records.

In a comment by Gina Gaulco to a post by Patrice Houck Schadt regarding the use of Alternate Dates, Gina explains her use of her custom ‘Analysis’ source. In the Analysis Source, Gina writes out her analysis of the various sources and places it in the ‘details’ for that source.

I checked the report options in RM to see if it would be possible to include either the notes or the source detail text in a narrative report and/or an individual summary report. On the main screen to generate a report, there is an option to print the notes.

On the Source settings for the report, there are options to ‘print research notes’ and ‘print detail comments’.

Thus, it is possible to include a research analysis in a printed report. Since I place the transcription of a source in the details for that source, I checked Ancestry to see whether that detail text was transmitted to Ancestry via TreeShare. By clicking on one of my sources from outside of Ancestry, I found that the detail text does transfer — but the line breaks are removed affecting the formatting of the text on the Ancestry side.

I will have to experiment with putting an analysis in the event Notes to see how TreeShare handles the transfer of formatted text in a Note.

In the meantime, I need to write an analysis of the data for several events. This, too, will be a learning curve. Wish me luck!

 

Research Notes

A couple of years ago, I joined Thomas MacEntee’s Genealogy Do-Over project. The primary thing I learned from participating in this project dealt with a need for continual learning. Thanks to this push, I am learning from many other researchers thru blogs, webinars, YouTube videos, Facebook posts and even tweets. Each of these challenges me to think about my research methods.

This last Mondays with Myrt discussed compiling research notes to support information shared in a tree. Most of the discussion centered around the need for such notes.  During the Wacky Wednesday zoom meeting, participants discussed a research question and worked thru creating research notes on a spreadsheet.

As I participated in both of these events, I was thinking about how I haven’t done a good job of compiling research notes. I recently watched one of Crista Cowan’s Barefoot Genealogist videos on how Crista uses the NOTES feature with her Ancestry tree.

Based on the concepts shared in this video, I have started creating similar notes for my direct line ancestors. To start creating these research notes, I am using a Microsoft Word document so that I can have the notes open and my RootsMagic screen open at the same time. As I work my way thru the various events and associated citations, I am also doing the transcribing, attaching images and updating the sources as needed (in other words a true go-over).

When finished, I copied the text from the Word document and pasted it into the person’s note field. By using the TreeShare feature of RootsMagic, I can upload those notes to the corresponding person on my Ancestry tree.

Even though it will take time to create all of these research notes, I find them helpful and will likely spend the time working thru my tree.

One of the points made during Mondays with Myrt was the need to not only keep such research notes — but to share those notes. Based on Crista’s video on notes, I don’t believe the person notes that I transfer from RootsMagic to Ancestry are public.

However, notes attached to an event can be transferred from RootsMagic to Ancestry. With TreeShare, these notes get separated from the source and appear in the list of sources separate from the original source. Thus, this isn’t an ideal way to share these notes.

In order to share these notes, I could include Notes when uploading data to my RootsMagic website. If that option is selected, the person notes appear at the top of the page in a scrollable box.

Like others mentioned in the Mondays with Myrt chat, I am reluctant to put all of my work online since I would like for other researchers to contact me versus just copying my sources, transcriptions and photos. However, if I want others to understand why I connected a son to his father, I likely need to create and share these notes. This will become critical if Ancestry pursues ‘peer review’ of member trees. (See post in the Ancestry.com Facebook community by Crista Cowan)

In the chat log for the Monday’s with Myrt, Tony Proctor makes a case for publishing research notes in a blog (at 10:51:32). Tony also added a comment to the Mondays with Myrt post where he pushed for research notes that discuss the ‘why’ versus those that just restate the ‘what’. He argues for a ‘rich-text’ format that includes items such as scanned images, maps, timelines and tables. By including these items, one can draw the reader from the raw data thru the reasoning to a conclusion. This would be similar to what the genealogical proof standard refers to as a sound and coherently written conclusion.

Because of the need to incorporate images and a variety of formatting, I believe I will have to share them thru a blog versus thru the person notes. Once I manage to write a research conclusion that includes the ‘why’, I will also need to figure out the best way to attach that conclusion to my tree.

Thinking thru this process, I have a couple of questions:

• Is a blog post the best way to share a written conclusion incorporating images and a variety of formatting?
• If research notes are published in a blog post, how would one connect them to a person (or persons) in a tree?

Thank you Dear Myrtle, Mondays with Myrt panel members and everyone who participated this week for pushing me to not only think thru the process of writing research notes but to actually work on writing them.

Documenting Parent-Child Relationships

Today, I had another researcher ask about my ‘ChildParent’ events associated with Nancy Jane McCormick. That event is a fact type that I created.

I created this fact type because I was used to using a similar fact type in The Master Genealogist (TMG). In TMG, I used the dau-bio and son-bio tag types. The tag allowed me to connect a parent with a child — and attach source documentation to that relationship.

Since RootsMagic doesn’t have a similar fact type, I’ve been struggling with how to document parent-child relationships. I’d love to hear how other RootsMagic users are documenting parent/child relationships!

Don’t Just Copy – Give Credit

I’ve been doing genealogy for some time and have been willing to share my info — even publicly on the web. Unfortunately, when I find my work posted by someone else without giving me credit or even contacting me, I get perturbed.

Today, I ran across my work saved as a story for Mary Thurston.

I realize that this info isn’t all that unique and could come from many other researchers. However, the citations point to my work. A long time ago, I started using the Dollarhide numbering system. Thus, when I see “Wells.MI.023”, I recognize my work.

Knowing that this came from my site, I decided to try and prove it. I went to the Wayback Machine and searched for my domain, heartlandgenealogy.org. Using that URL, I was able to find a 2016 copy of my site. On that version of the site was my info for Mary Thurston.

Not only was this info copied from my page, it was shared by several other researchers.

This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered my work shared by others. Not only have people copied the stories from my old site but they have also copied and shared the photographs.

Unfortunately, the person who originally copied the information did not include a citation or any attribution to the original author. The lack of a citation prevents other users from connecting with me. Thus, I am prevented from working with them to add to the family story.

When you find an online genealogy, please give credit to the poster of the genealogy so that others can connect with the author.

 

 

Land on Sugar Creek / Mary Crawford

This indenture made this 23 day of March and year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred ninety one between Richard Cave and Elizabeth his wife of the county of Woodford and District of Kentucky of the one part and Mary Crawford of the County of Madison and District aforesaid of the other part witnesseth that the said Richard Cave and Elizabeth his wife for and in consideration of the sum of seventy pounds current money of Virginia to them in hand paid by the said Mary Crawford the receipt whereof he the said Richard Cave and Elizabeth his wife doth hereby acknowledge and themselves therewith fully sattisfied and content hath granted bargained sold aliened and confirmed and by these presents doth grant bargain sell alien and confirm unto the said Mary Crawford one certain tract or parcel of land containing by survey one hundred acres situate lying and being in the aforesaid county of Madison and on the waters of Sugar Creek and is bounded as follows (to wit) Beginning at a black walnut and buck tree standing in the line of Richard Caves survey four hundred acres on said Creek and corner to William McChears hundred acres extending from thence south one hundred and fifty six poles to a sugar tree and Hickory from thence north sixty four degrees west seventy two poles to a Buck thence north forty five degrees west one hundred and eighteen poles to four Linns growing from one root from thence North forty poles to a Buckeye and Sugar tree corner to William McCluer and from thence East one hundred and sixty poles binding on McCluers line to the beginning including the said Mary Crawfords clearing and improvements with its appurtenances to have and to hold the said land and premises with every of its appertinences unto the said Mary Crawford and her heirs forever and the said Richard Cave for himself his heirs executors and administrators the said land and premises unto the said Mary Crawford heir heirs executors and administrators shall and will warrant and for ever defend against the claim of him the said Richard Cave and Elizabeth his wife their heirs executors and administrators or from any other person or persons claiming by or under them and against the claim of all and every other person or persons whatsoever In witness whereof the said Richard Cave and Elizabeth his wife for themselves their heirs exeuctors and administrators hath hereunto set their hands and affixed their seals this day and year first above written

Signed sealed acknowledged
and delivered in the presents of
(The three letters in the second line the word Woodford interlined before send)
Michael Turner
Charles Bland
witnesses for Richd Cave
Thos McClure
William McClure
witnesses for Elizabeth Cave

images 205-206-207 of 429
film #007896910

• Madison County Kentucky, Book of Deeds, Vol. A 1787-1790: images 205, 206, 207, Mary Crawford, grantee; FamilySearch microfilm # 007896910.